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Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences - Faculty
M. Brian Maple
Director
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Ph.D., Physics
Professor of Physics
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Research Areas
Experimental low-temperature solid-state physics and surface physics
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As an experimentalist working in the area of condensed matter physics, I am interested in strongly correlated electron phenomena in
novel d- and f-electron materials. These phenomena include superconductivity, magnetism, and effects arising from their interplay,
heavy fermion behavior, and non-Fermi liquid behavior. I am especially interested in unconventional superconductivity that occurs
in cuprates in which the superconducting critical temperature Tc attains values as high as ~ 130 K and heavy fermion
materials in which Tc ~ 1 K. Heavy fermion materials are compounds of rare earth or actinide ions with partially-filled
f-electron shells (e.g., Ce, Yb, U) in which the conduction electrons have effective masses as large as several hundred times the
free electron mass. It is widely believed that the unconventional superconductivity found in these two classes of materials involves
pairing of electrons, mediated by spin fluctuations, in states with angular momentum greater than zero (p- or d-wave
superconductivity). Recently, superconductivity with Tc = 1.85 K in the filled skutterudite compound PrOs4Sb12,
the first heavy fermion superconductor based on Pr, was discovered in our laboratory at the University of California, San Diego.
There is evidence for triplet-spin (p-wave) pairing of superconducting electrons in PrOs4Sb12, which may be
mediated by electric quadrupole fluctuations, rather than spin fluctuations. I also have a strong interest is non-Fermi liquid
behavior and other exotic states, such as unconventional superconductivity, that are found in d- and f-electron materials in the
vicinity of quantum critical points, values of a control parameter such as composition, pressure, or magnetic field where a second
order phase transition is suppressed to 0 K.
For more information, visit http://mbmlab.ucsd.edu
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Selected Publications
M. B. Maple, E. D. Bauer, V. S. Zapf, and J. Wosnitza, “Unconventional Superconductivity in Novel Materials,” in The Physics of
Superconductors, eds. K. H. Bennemann and J. B. Ketterson, Springer, Berlin, 2004, Vol. II (Superconductivity in Nanostructures,
High-Tc and Novel Superconductors, Organic Superconductors) ch. 8.
B. J. Taylor, Shi Li, M. B. Maple, and M. P. Maley, "Vortex-melting and vortex-glass transitions in a high purity twinned
YBa2Cu3O7-δ single crystal," Physical Review B 68, 054523 (2003).
M. B. Maple, P.-C. Ho, N. A. Frederick, V. S. Zapf, W. M. Yuhasz, E. D. Bauer, A. D. Christianson, and A. H. Lacerda, "Superconductivity and the high-field ordered phase in the
heavy-fermion compound PrOs4Sb12," Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 15, S2071 (2003).
V. S. Zapf, R. P. Dickey, E. J. Freeman, C. Sirvent, and M. B. Maple, “Magnetic and non-Fermi-liquid properties of
U1-xLaxPd2Al3,” Physical Review B 65, 024437 (2001).
D. L. Cox and M. B. Maple, “Electronic pairing in exotic superconductors,” Physics Today 48, 32 (1995).
M. B. Maple, M. C. de Andrade, J. Herrmann, Y. Dalichaouch, D. A. Gajewski, C. L. Seaman, R. Chau, R. Movshovich, M. C. Aronson, and
R. Osborn, “Non-Fermi liquid ground states in strongly correlated f-electron materials,” Journal of Low Temperature Physics
99, 223 (1995).
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